5 reasons Nuggets should be panicking after nightmare game 2 loss to Timberwolves

Reason #2: 33-421

This is the record of teams facing an 0-2 deficit in an NBA playoff series. That’s good for a winning percentage of 7.3%. In other words, the odds are decidedly not in Denver’s favor.

To make matters worse, a team has only come back to win a series after losing the first two games at home on five occasions in league history. The Nuggets are going to need to do something that is incredibly rarely seen in basketball history.

They are going to have to totally flip this series on its head, and they are going to have to do it on the road as three of the next four games (if necessary) will be played in Minnesota. Furthermore, while game three isn’t technically an elimination game, history would tell you it might as well be.

In playoff history, 154 teams have lost the first three games of a best-of-seven series, and all 154 of those teams have lost the series. The Celtics got close to pulling it off last season in the Eastern Conference Finals, but they were just the fourth team ever to even force a game seven after being down 0-3.

So, to state the obvious, the Nuggets have to turn it around, and it has to start on Friday night in game three.